(CNN) -- A Huntsville, Alabama, woman charged with capital murder in the deaths of her three children told investigators she "deliberately starved her children to death," a police spokesman said Saturday.

"She told investigators that she deliberately starved her children to death. They did appear to be malnourished," Wendell Johnson of the Huntsville police said. Autopsies will determine how and when they died, he said.

Ward is being held without bond at the Madison County Jail.

Police found the children's bodies on the floor of three separate bedrooms in their apartment in west Huntsville on Friday afternoon, Johnson said. There were no beds in the rooms, he said.

Asked whether the children might have been dead for days, Johnson said that was "very possible."

Utilities had been cut off to the apartment on January 12, and family members put some money together to have the utilities turned back on, he said.

Friday, paramedics responded to a 911 call, and one of the children's grandmothers was at the apartment with Ward. Johnson said he did not know whether the grandmother was Ward's mother.

Johnson said authorities believe the father -- who was not named -- did not live with the mother, but was in the parking lot of the apartment building when police arrived.

The children had not attended school after the winter break ended, Johnson said. Family members had previously gone to the apartment, but Ward would not let them in.

The apartment is in a low- to middle-income apartment building near Redstone Arsenal military base, he said.